Legend has it that when the SBC was formed in 1845 at First Baptist Augusta, GA., the new Convention shirked its 1st debt by failing to pay the livery bill. It's no surprise that a Convention founded in slavery & ownership of a people group would carry that forward as a legacy. >

So then, it's no surprise that the sons, grandsons, & great-grandsons of the Convention who have grown up in the American South, grounded in the racism of our fathers, would live out both the subconscious and conscious behaviors of those racist attitudes. >

Al Mohler is under scrutiny but other leaders are no less guilty and some are much more so. The legacy worldview that people can be owned and managed leads to a current worldview that the degradation and abuse of those in subordinate classes in the SBC can be safely overlooked. >

Minorities, women, immigrants, the poor, those who don't agree with SBC theology, and even Southern Baptists who support social issues can be subject to harsh & abusive treatment. The elite SBC is not a boys club; it's an owners group and those not capable of owning suffer. >

The way out for Mohler and the SBC is (1) yes, absolutely continue to repudiate this worldview, but also (2) extend JD Greear's emphasis on making diversity normal and expected and thus gradually unremarkable; and >

(3) take specific actions to observably reverse decades & decades of subversive treatment; (4) raise the fires of hell over crimes against men like Ahmad Aubrey and women like Breonna Taylor to demand justice on behalf of Christians everywhere; and >

(5) remove symbolism from SBC entities that displays the sin of human subjugation; (6) focus on loving all people rather than promoting a political platform, and >

(7) Realize and act on the fact that the heritage of owning people manifests generations later in abusive and demeaning behavior that contradicts the gospel. Rather than gospel above all, man has become above gospel. >

Mohler can reverse some of this damage but all Baptists own our heritage. All of us have seen, ignored or regretted the racism inherent in the SBC. All of us can act to reverse it & the abuse of others deriving from it. The elite SBC must stop owning and instead serve. /